I am a Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Dhaka, where I joined the faculty in May 2026. My research centers on vaccine development and translational medicine.

About

I completed my B.S. (2023) and M.S. (2025) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Dhaka, ranking first in my class in both degrees. My M.S. thesis focused on designing a multi-epitope dengue vaccine using immunoinformatics tools, then expressing the vaccine construct in a cost-effective way using E. coli. I successfully designed the construct, expressed it, and purified it using chromatographic techniques. This project taught me how powerful it is to integrate bioinformatics analysis with wet-lab techniques to solve real-world problems. The dengue vaccine work is still ongoing: we’re currently designing an experiment to evaluate the safety and immune response of the construct in an animal model, within our resource-limited setting.

During my M.S. year, I also led a second project designing a multi-epitope vaccine construct against monkeypox virus, published in a Q2 journal.

After completing my M.S., I was fortunate to join the One Health Laboratory at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). There, I learned how to conduct research while strictly adhering to biosafety and biosecurity protocols. My major projects included screening antiviral compounds against Nipah virus and developing a pseudovirus model for Chikungunya virus, alongside assays supporting a Phase II trial of a Nipah vaccine. These projects taught me techniques including cell culture in a controlled BSL-2 environment, pseudovirus and chimeric virus production, focus reduction neutralization assays, cytotoxicity assays, ELISA, and pseudovirus neutralization assays.

The lab was also involved in service-based work, including potency testing of biosimilar products, two of which were cancer monoclonal antibody drugs, Bevacizumab and Trastuzumab. While developing the biopotency assay for Bevacizumab (which starves cancer cells by lowering angiogenesis), we struggled with inconsistent responses from the HUVEC-TERT2 cell line. Having been fascinated by cancer biology since my undergraduate years, this challenge deepened my interest even further - after extensive literature review and trial and error, we successfully optimized the assay.

That experience inspired me to start studying cancer biology more seriously, launching two bioinformatics projects developing multi-omics risk models for bladder and stomach cancer. Since joining the department in May 2026, I’ve continued this direction with two ongoing projects: one examining the association between vitamin D receptor variants and vitamin D levels with breast cancer risk (published in a Q1 journal), and another studying ATM gene variants and lung cancer development in the Bangladeshi population.

As I go deeper into virology and cancer biology, I’m continually struck by how interconnected biological systems are - one of the most fascinating parallels being that viruses and cancer cells rely on remarkably similar mechanisms to evade the immune system. I hope to pursue a PhD in virology or cancer biology to better understand how these entities persist in the host, and how we might more effectively prevent or treat the diseases they cause.

I’m always glad to connect with fellow researchers, collaborators, and students interested in virology and cancer biology.

Research Interests

My work integrates computational approaches with wet-lab techniques to solve health problems related to communicable and non-communicable diseases.

A few areas I’m focused on:

• Vaccine design : Multi-epitope, pan-serotype candidates against viruses such as dengue and monkeypox
• Antiviral drug discovery : Identifying natural compound inhibitors against emerging viruses such as Nipah virus
• Pseudovirus model development : Developing BSL-2 compatible pseudovirus model for BSL-3 and BSL-4 pathogens, for example Chikungunya virus
• Cancer genetics : Multi-omics bioinformatics and risk-prediction models development for stomach and bladder cancer. Genetic association studies for breast and lung cancer patients in the Bangladeshi population

Teaching

As a Lecturer, I teach Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Molecular Biology, and Nutrition related courses, and am involved in question preparation, exam evaluation, and mentoring undergraduate students in laboratory-based and computational research projects.

Awards and Fellowships

🏅 National Science and Technology (NST) Fellowship - 2024
🏅 Provost Award - 2023, Amar Ekushey Hall, University of Dhaka
🏅 Provost Award - 2022, Amar Ekushey Hall, University of Dhaka
🏅 Dean’s Award - 2022, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Dhaka
🏅 Dhaka University Honors Scholarship - 2022

Get in Touch

Feel free to reach me at khalid.raj@du.ac.bd, or connect via the links in the sidebar.